The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has intensified monitoring mechanisms within the financial sector to curb the rising number of fraud cases.

This follows the release of its latest annual Fraud Report, which revealed that the number of staff involved in fraudulent activities in banks and Specialized Deposit-Taking Institutions (SDIs) jumped from 188 in 2022 to 274 in 2023, reflecting a 46 percent increase.

Additionally, the financial losses due to fraud climbed by 7 percent, reaching 88 million cedis over the same period.

In an interview with Joy Business, the Deputy Director of the Financial Stability Department at the BoG, Dr. John Dadzie, mentioned that strategies have been set in place to require banks to provide a detailed plan to address the issue.

“The Bank of Ghana is concerned about fraud prevention across all banks. We do not differentiate between institutions with higher or lower fraud rates. Upon releasing our reports, we write to all banks to submit strategies outlining their plans to minimize fraud incidence and related losses”, he said.

Dr. Dadzie stated that the aim of the BoG is reduce fraud in the financial sector to the lowest level to discourage staff and the public from being enticed to engage in fraudulent acts.

He added that it is the wish of the bank to stop from fraudulent activities from occurring in the first place.

“Fraud is fraud and from the regulators point of view, we are looking at not having fraud situations at all. Even if a bank has one or two incidences of fraud, the impact could be very significant”, he pointed out.

Declining to mention specific names of banks involved, Dr. Dadzie said the mandate of the central bank is to put in measures that will prescribe punitive actions for anybody involved in fraud in the financial sector.

“The Bank of Ghana is very much concerned not just in terms of who has more or less. Fraudulent activities are unacceptable, and from a regulator point of view, we aim to eliminate such occurrences entirely. Even isolated incidents of fraud can have significant consequences for banks”.